The Colour of Murder
by BurntQueen
Summary: An alternate beginning to Twilight, and we'll see what happens from there.
1. Chapter 1

I slept a little on the flight to Seattle. I was not as distressed as you could have expected at having just left my mother and the only home I clearly remembered possibly forever. But if you had known me, maybe you wouldn't have been surprised. I was never that emotional, always reacting to life as though it only touched me through a thick glass window. I had always pinned that on my oversensitive mother, overly mature to compensate for her thoughtlessness. When the flight touched down, the older gentleman who had sat in the adjacent seat helped me get my carry-on luggage off the rack. I was tired, and had only recently woken. I wandered through desks in a daze to collect my suitcase. It was grey and unremarkable, but it had bright pink identification tags attached to it I was confident I wouldn't miss. I waited patiently for it to pass around, but as the crowd dwindled I started to wonder if it had been lost on the way from Phoenix. Resigning myself to what would have only been my usual luck, I headed for the help desk, cheeks scarlet at the prospect of bothering an airport official. A strikingly beautiful redhead caught my eye. She was standing with a taller, dark haired man I assumed to be her boyfriend, or husband, or whatever. He was holding a bulky suitcase in one hand, a surprising display of strength. He was a slight man. Another colour, almost as bright as the woman's stunning hair caught my eye, and I changed direction, sighing in relief.

"Excuse me? Excuse me!"

The redhead turned to survey me through her dark glasses. The man didn't move, but inhaled deeply.

"Can we help you?" She asked politely. Her voice was high and sweet, soprano.

I looked up at her. She was tall, six foot at least, and impossibly beautiful up close. I wondered if the two were actually a couple. I had thought so at first, but now they seemed to look similar, the same icy complexion and perfect features. Siblings, maybe. "I just...you have my bag." I indicated the case, blushing. She glanced down at it, then back at me, her slow smile revealing flawlessly white teeth. "James," She sang in her chiming voice. "We have her bag."

He turned fully to face me, and his eyes locked with mine. I staggered back in shock. They were a bloody crimson, a murderous dark red. Unnatural. He smiled like the woman, and his teeth were just as white, just as pointed. They glistened like the fangs of some predator animal.

"I thought we might." He answered the redhead. His voice...if hers was melodic, his was a hundred times that. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. It sounded like the most expensive dark chocolate tasted. It drew my mind to the few classical performances I'd seen in my life, to the way the musicians could channel such emotion from their instruments to make you weep. His voice was like that. I stood so enraptured for a moment that I didn't even know what he'd said, only how beautifully he said it. Then, his words pervaded the fog in my mind and I was frightened, and confused. I wanted my suitcase, and Charlie was probably waiting for me. These people were strange. I wanted them to give me my bag, get back to their business, and stop whatever game they were playing with me.

"Can I have my suitcase?" I tried, but my voice was weak and intimidated. His grin widened, displaying more teeth, and he hefted the bag, stepping a little away from me. I moved towards him, and he laughed, clearly getting the result he was going for. "Come with us now little girl," The woman cooed, and that pushed me over the line from nervous to panicked. She sounded like a child kidnapper, or a disgusting pedophile. I stumbled backward, mouth opening to scream. James moved faster than I did and he grabbed me around the waist, pinning my arms to my sides and dropping my bag as he did so. The redhead deftly scooped it up, carrying the heavy weight as easily as he did. He pulled me close to his side, that lovely voice hissing in my ear.

"Do you want to live?" His tone wasn't threatening, or even violent, which was odd, considering the situation. He sounded conversational, mildly disinterested and polite. I choked, unable to speak. It was surprising how suddenly, how quickly the fear shot through me, honest-to-God fear, the herald of imminent death, like I'd never felt before. My sight blurred and everything became distant, like a camera unfocusing. I bobbed my head weakly, feeling like I was going to collapse. He kept his grip on me and guided me through the airport, following the flame-haired woman. No-one looked twice. I wanted to scream that I needed help, to ask why they couldn't see something clearly wrong was happening under their noses, but my voice had abandoned me the moment the dark-haired man had threatened me so cordially.

We left the building, but the redhead turned away from the gathering of cabs at the sidewalk towards the edge of the airport complex. They moved faster and faster the further we went from the crowds, and he was closer to carrying me than anything else. She must have taken a wrong path somewhere, because they stopped to stare up a mile-high chain link fence. I revived a little, some part of me starting to search for opportunity to escape, then the redhead leapt like a cat into the air, and grasped the metal fence, scaling it with inhuman speed and agility. It was almost like watching a spider scuttle across a floor. The motion was like that, too swift to follow and with the same unnerving quality. She moved like she had extra limbs to pull her too-fast. My other captor hefted me over his shoulder, and imitated her. I was curiously detached. I felt I must be watching some film, or even dreaming this. The world seemed vague and unreal, somehow waxy. I closed my eyes and ignored the nauseating dizziness as he ran with enough speed for the wind to burn my face.

Another voice entered the fiction some time - days or seconds or something in between - later. It was smooth like the others, but supplicating. "Yes, James, that's her."

"She's been singularly unimpressive so far." The man from the airport was bored, on the surface, and he was bored in a definitely well-bred and British way.

"You haven't changed her yet." The new voice pointed out. "She will be a powerful shield, I know it."

"Mmmm. Well, I'll change her, as you suggest. Go to Victoria, she wanted to hunt."

I was past attempting to translate any of this into sense. I felt dulled and numb and wanted the end I was sure was coming. I wasn't even present enough to follow the entire conversation. Parts of it were patched over with black. I felt a chill rise in the air in front of me, and knew what I would see before I partially lifted one eyelid. The demonic eyes of the man from the airport floated before me. I felt his grip like concrete on my hand, then he raised my wrist to his lips and poured hellfire into my veins.


	2. Chapter 2

At first, the agony was a snake charmer, holding me transfixed and silent. Then some strength or weakness cracked and broke in my mind and all the red pain filling up inside me flooded out in terrible, tortured shrieks. I couldn't feel myself screaming and contorting but I could the jagged, razor-edged sound and see the world twisting and moving around me. I wept and sobbed at the monsters to kill me, to have some pity, some humanity, and end my suffering. I think the cruel man laughed at that. My perceptions were warped, and I couldn't be sure of anything but the pain, couldn't be sure there was anything but the pain. I tried to remember my mother, my life, my friends, school, Phoenix, chanting a list over and over, reassuring myself the fire wasn't everything there was. But the list got shorter and vaguer. I second-guessed events, memories, images of once-familiar people. Even their names slipped away from the grasping fingers of my hazy recollections. My mother stayed the longest, erratic Renee clinging stubbornly, refusing to let me forget her teasing grin and thick dark curls. Were they dark? My mother's hair was lighter than mine, wasn't it? And shorter? Or was it longer? Her eyes were the same colour as mine, at least. My eyes were...I couldn't remember. I didn't remember what I looked like. I couldn't remember my friends, my home. I couldn't even remember what my mother looked like, I could hardly remember her name. A yawning horror opened in my chest then, but was quickly overshadowed by pain. I couldn't remember my mother's name.  
Evil flames seemed to be burning me from the inside out, and I thought they should have razed my bones to dust by now, but I still saw my hands fisted in the dirt and my legs curled in to my body in the foetal position. There was a bloody gash on my left wrist, the solitary outward sign of my personal Apocalypse. I so wanted to die. I craved soothing, peaceful darkness, an eternal sleep.  
An awful realisation crept inside my mind. What if this was death? What if this was Hell, the punishment I'd never believed in? What if there was no end to this torment?  
I couldn't be certain, but I think the screams sounded louder.  
I had lost time and all idea of later or before, but somewhen, blessed icy-blue relief came to my toes, my ankles, my fingertips. I sobbed harder in praise and gratitude, and dared hope that this was my light and the end of the tunnel of fire. Fire which suddenly rose up hotter in my heart, hotter than I thought possible. A clear, sharp shriek pierced through the rest, and I clawed at my torso, expecting to see bright flames leaping from a charred cavity. My nails made a sound like metal scratching on rock and ripped through my jacket, sweater and shirt, yet my skin was perfect and unmarred. I batted at the imaginary flames that were causing all-to-real pain and coiled in on myself to smother the invisible fire. My elbows and knees cooled and I anticipated the blaze in my chest when it ignited. There was no preparing for the scale of it and my screeching was just as horrified as before. Three light, quick steps arrived into the room, ending with two standing together closer and a third at a wary distance. I had a feeling, unsubstantiated as it was, that I wouldn't have heard these before, never mind distinguished specific nuances. A third part of my mind registered with surprise that there were areas of my mind unconsumed by the pain and apparently capable of operating independently to the main intelligence.  
One of the closer two shifted its weight, leaned close to me. I heard it bring fresh air into its lungs at the same time the inferno centred in my chest, pulling from all the rest of my body. I screamed, begging the three of them.  
"Help me, please kill me, kill me, please. I need...I can't..." For the first time, answers came, in a voice high and childlike, an angel bringing hope to my Hell.  
"It's not long now. It's nearly finished, just hold on."  
It was one of the closer two, the one who had leaned towards me. "Thank-you," I rasped, almost crying. The pain ratcheted up, the flames swirling hotter, blisteringly hot, heat enough to melt flesh. Then, it stopped. All of a sudden, just like that, like flicking a switch, all the fire was swept away into a black hole. I fancied I could have pinpointed the instant. And in that instant, I was aware of everything. Of the three other people, their exact smells and distances from me, the shallow breaths of the far one and he silence of the other two, of the thick scent I somehow knew was metal and the acrid taste of oil in the air, the markings of urbanity. The wealth of sensory information was staggering, and yet not overwhelming. I absorbed and assorted the new information, drew conclusions and still most of my mind was wrapped up in peace and relief at having somehow escaped the burning. There was so much space in my head. I felt like I'd moved into an airy mansion after living all my life in one cramped room. Then I opened my eyes and stared up at a dingy ceiling with peeling greyish white paint, through whorls of dust-and-dirt-tinted air. The information categorisation..thing happened again, but I was already learning which parts of my brain I should focus on and which ran semi-reflexively. I concentrated briefly on intent, and I was standing facing the three others so quickly the motion may as well not have happened. There were two males and one female. She stood closer to me and was sheltered behind the smaller of the two males, the one I knew, without knowing how I knew, was more dangerous. The other one I marked as a potential target, isolated as he was from the other two and as he blocked the exit. He was directly in front of the door, though whether to prevent my escape or to aid his own was unclear. The female stared unabashed, her bright eyes skimming over me. I registered the colour of those eyes with shock and fear on two levels. The older part of me, the part from before, was terrified by the stark crimson; foggy memories surfaced and I fought the urge to bolt for the door. The newer, more animalistic side of me was wary of the fresh colour, associating it with strength in a way I didn't understand. It was then I became aware of a lingering flame in my throat, duller than before but still agonising. I clutched my neck, and the female's strong features rearranged themselves onto a look of sympathy.  
"James, she's thirsty." She murmured to the male I identified as hers. He kept his narrow, suspicious gaze trained on me, not acknowledging her.  
Thirst. Was that the word for the intense scorching in my throat? It couldn't be. It seemed too trivial, too commonplace for this raw, red blaze. I pictured a cold glass of water, condensed droplets running down its side and mentally reared back. No, that wouldn't help.  
"What do you remember, young one?" The smaller man spoke with authority, command, and I didn't like it. I snarled, baring my knifelike teeth and dropping to an aggressive crouch, lining up the perfect angle for a lunge at his unprotected neck.  
"What do you remember?"  
I hesitated, wresting back the instinct to fight. This one knew something at least about the burning. He was aware of the gaps in my memory and understanding. I needed what he knew. "Little." I spat. "Nothing."  
He nodded, seemingly pleased I had answered. "That does not matter. What you have forgotten is unimportant."  
I studied him, taking in his display of calm and relaxation while noting the little markers of his tension. I was carefully respectful when I asked: "What has happened to me?"  
The corners of his mouth moved, but I couldn't tell what emotion it denoted. "You have been changed." He paused for a second, piercing me with deadly serious eyes. "You are a vampire now."  
The word was familiar. My mind provided hazy images of dark cloaks, castles, bats and a mouth, stained berry-red with blood. The fire rose and stretched in my throat. Yes, that was what I needed. The smaller male was honest, so far. "Are you?" I asked him, already knowing the answer. "Yes." He told me. I was encouraged by his freedom with information. "We all are. I changed you, and it is my responsibility to teach me the laws of our kind."  
My ears almost literally perked up at the mention of laws and changes, but I shoved aside the curiosity and decided to walk before I ran. "You changed me? I was not always a vampire?"  
"No. Before you were less. Now you are greater than you ever could have been."  
My mouth twisted. "I'm thirsty." I whimpered, trying out the word. It fit better now I had the image of thick, gushing scarlet liquid to match.  
The female stepped forward. "I will help you to drink. I'll teach you." She detached herself from the leading male for the first time and walked slowly towards the door. The second male moved out of her path and my head swivelled to follow her. "I'm Victoria." She said softly, kindly.  
I tasted that. "Victoria." I looked up at her apologetically. "I don't know..."  
She tilted her head, understanding. "Your name is Isabella."


End file.
